T. Boone Pickens

From what I've seen, LNG has only 60% of the energy density of Diesel ( basically it says for the same amount, the LNG can only make about 60% of the energy that's made by Diesel) and for CNG it's estimated at 25%, and since Natural Gas is mostly made of Methane, which is CH4, it should be lighter, but as the energy densities say, you're trading off weight for power

 

Science and Chemistry are big parts of my life, with Chemistry being one of my fav college subjects, so when it comes to things like this I love it

 

I was told that lpg is a power adder....dunno?

 

It's not bs. IIRC, it's called the Bakken formation. My mom has a couple farms in ND with some oil wells on them.....too bad they aren't pumping. Although there are some people who became millionaires almost overnight.

 

One of the big problems with CNG is that the tanks to carry it take up too much space for the mileage you get. friend worked for a company that retrofitted vehicles. His uncle was top engineer with Dow Chemical. He was pardner in company . He spent years trying to develop a catalyst to mix w/CNG to up mileage per fillup. But he finally gave up and sold his shares. Maybe someone will figure it out. T Boone is only worried about T Boone. Have seen him talk his BS for 30 years. Of course now that Pelosi has 22,000 shares of his gas company he may get some Gov money.

 

Slightly off topic: Pickens wants natural gas-powered heavy trucks as a "bridge" between foreign oil and future radical technologies. He wants fleets to receive federal funding of $75,000 per truck to purchase these trucks until hybrids or better batteries are developed.

Daimler has delivered more than 200 LNG powered trucks to intermodal carrier California Cartage Co., and to the port of Long Beach. Wal-Mart Stores is using four LNGF trucks in southern California. Pickens said that more than half of the trash trucks in southern California have gone to natural gas.

This info came from Transport Topics 2/2/09, page 11, in an article by Sean McNally.

 

I totally agree. There are plenty of fleets out there currently running trucks on natural gas...have been for years. They are all local though. Too many drawbacks for long-haul use like refueling infrastructure, required time to refuel, and range per refuel. Ol' Pickens is simply trying to launder some gov't money through the trucking industry.

On a side note, looked at one of the Cummins-Westport ISX engines running natural gas in a KW T800 daycab the other day at the Cummins shop in Houston. An interesting setup indeed.